I wish I knew what prevented some people from ever changing.
This morning I learned my cousin Willy was arrested last month for selling crack. My cousin is 50 years old and has been arrested more times than I can count, and probably more times than he can remember.
My cousin is five years older than I am and grew up on the other side of town, so we didn't hang out all that often. I remember him showing me a big bag of weed once; that was around 1983, so I would have been 10 and he, 15. When we visited his house or he visited ours, we played Atari and shot BB guns. I don't really have a lot of stories that include the two of us doing stuff together.
But I do have a lot of stories about crimes he's committed. The guy's neither bright nor brave, so for the most part he steals from people he knows, which usually ends up being his own family. By the end of the 90s he had already spent time in prison. His typical MO is to rob people and sell the stolen goods at local pawn shops using his own ID, a crime he's been arrested for at least half a dozen times. (Crack kills brain cells, people.) When he got out of prison in the early 00's, everybody insisted on giving him a second (or third or fourth) chance. My cousin's sister allowed him to live with her, while my mom got him a job at a local HVAC company and hired him to replace the air conditioner at her rent house, where my sister was living. Exactly one month later, my cousin stole a work truck, robbed his own sister, and then robbed my mom's rent house, where my sister was living. He got caught a month or two later and went back to prison. His online rap sheet is two pages long.
Last year, both my cousin's dad and his step-dad passed away. My cousin was out on parole, and went around the funeral telling everybody how he had changed. The stress from the two deaths caused my aunt to overdose on prescription pills and have a stroke. She needs someone to care for her now, and my cousin -- suddenly a paladin in his own eyes -- said he would take care of her. "It's my mother!" he said, somehow offended by the fact that people didn't believe him.
Over the past couple of months, my cousin has taken one of my aunt's cars, and sold the other. While she was temporarily living in an assisted living facility, he changed all the locks on her house and started dealing drugs out of it. At one point, he began pressuring her to add his name to the home's title. In the meantime, he tore her house apart and sold all the appliances (he was "remodeling it," he says). That brings us to last month, when he was arrested for:
Monday, after Easter, my mom is going to help my aunt get an apartment close to her and move what's left of her possessions (clothes, mostly). My mom turns 72 this year and my aunt is her older sister, and not in great health. Depending on how my cousin's charges go (keep in mind he was out on parole when he committed these crimes, so he'll be going back to prison to finish that sentence plus whatever time he gets in addition to that), it's fairly likely he'll be in prison when she passes, too.POSSESSION CDS WITH INTENT TO DISTRIBUTE
POSSESSION CDS WITH INTENT TO DISTRIBUTE
POSSESSION OF A CONTROLLED DANGEROUS SUBSTANCE (MISDEMEANOR)
POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA
POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA
POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA
POSSESSION OF PROCEEDS IN VIOLATION OF UCDSA
POSSESSION OF PROCEEDS IN VIOLATION OF UCDSA
I wish I knew what caused some people to turn bad.
I wish I knew what prevented some people from ever changing.
